It doesn’t matter if it bombs, it’s just really cool, striking visuals, and that’s good enough for Disney. They just need an anchor property to use as inspiration for all the other things they sell - rides, toys, books, games, TV series, clothes, dishes, sheets, etc. Beyond that, it is one more attraction in the parks around the world, attracting tourists to stay in their hotels, and eat in their restaurants.
Fungible? Just barely more than a well-designed screensaver? “OK, the marketing’s in place, now we need the product.” “Sure, let’s go hire some creatives.”
Similar to op-ed about AI Music recently. It’s basically background music.
Get the family together for a movie night. Doesn’t matter what it is, you’ll all be on your phones anyway. Disney’s safe and reliable, Tron is just slightly edgy, hey it’s got a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails, that brings back memories…
I love how EVERY article references the NIN soundtrack.
Everybody loves John Williams’ thrilling film scores, the guy has won more Oscars than anyone, but they never promote a new blockbuster movie by screaming that it has a John Williams score.
It doesn’t matter if it bombs, it’s just really cool, striking visuals, and that’s good enough for Disney.
…
They just need an anchor property to use as inspiration for all the other things they sell - rides, toys, books, games, TV series, clothes, dishes, sheets, etc. Beyond that, it is one more attraction in the parks around the world, attracting tourists to stay in their hotels, and eat in their restaurants.
It’s true, though. You market the shit out of the movie just to get people to watch Jared “Don’t Ask What I’ve Been Up To On Tinder” Leto dress like an 8-bit gladiator and do some stunts.
Then the movie becomes another advertising vehicle for the game. And the game becomes an advertisement for the Disney Park. And the park is stuffed full of adverts for the next movie.
It’s all one giant marketing ouroboros. From the outside, yeah, it looks crazy. But when you’re being shit out and eaten over and over again, you’re convinced that you’re having a great time.
vore me mouse daddy
Sounds like a better movie. Maybe we can get Ministry to do the soundtrack.
Okay, you win, I’m done with the internet for the day.
awww i was going to get out ms paint and shit and draw a little comic to go with.
Disney needs to be broken up; they control too much in the US.
Tron: Arse would be a better name for the new installment
I loved Tron Legacy. Maybe it was the right movie for me at the time but I couldn’t believe it did so poorly. Amazing visuals/art direction, amazing soundtrack, and decently solid story.
I loved Tron 2.0 from 2003.
This was my introduction to the franchise.
I wish I still had all my small box pc games from that era. I still have quite a few, but i would love the box for this one, Prey, and RCT2.
Well, at least you still have the feet.
Oh, those aren’t mine.
Is the box yours at least?
Oh, yeah! The feet come and go, but the box remains the same. I don’t even like feet, I don’t know where they keep coming from.
I liked it too. It was basically just a long music video for Daft Punk with cool visuals. Looks like Nine Inch Nails does the soundtrack for this one, which I also like. I won’t watch it in the movie theater (haven’t been in years), but I will definitely torrent it when it comes out on home release.
It felt like I was watching a chapter out of a much longer book, but without the rest of the book for reference. Yes, cool visuals and descent acting and some fun action sequences. But it began and ended in such a way that I couldn’t really understand what was going on and never landed at a satisfying end point.
Disney has a habit of doing this with a lot of properties. SW: The Force Awakens had this vibe as well, as though there was a bunch of companion material I was supposed to have worked through before getting to the actual movie. The last couple of Indiana Jones movies, too.
They don’t know how to just make a movie. Its always got to be some snippet from an enormous vision of an end-to-end experience. It’s not for me because I didn’t re-watch the original before playing the game and solving the secret riddle that ships me a copy of the comic book that kinda sorta explains wtf is going on.
as though there was a bunch of companion material I was supposed to have worked through before getting to the actual movie.
Those movies are all sequels. There is companion material - the movies they’re sequels to
There’s a huge time gap between the original Tron and Legacy. The sentient computer protagonist and her tribe are just kinda revealed and then dropped. Maybe they had additional content planned for release and it died on the drawing board. But so much of the story revolves around the fighting, the in-movie world building remains comparatively threadbare.
Compare that to The Matrix or Jurassic Park, both of which do a better job of building out the world even within the context of conflict between the main characters and the various world hazards.
The sentient computer protagonist and her tribe are just kinda revealed and then dropped because CLU killed them all and she is the last one.
The ISO’s, they were going to be my gift to the world.
Flynn was planning to bring the ISOs into the real world
And then CLU betrays Flynn and kills all the ISOs except Quorra, who escaped with Flynn off the grid
There’s a huge time gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, but everyone understands that you’re gonna be lost if you just jump into The Force Awakens blind.
I’m not trying to excuse bad writing, don’t get me wrong - there are definitely problems with The Force Awakens and with Tron: Legacy that should have been solved in the writing room, and even then they probably wouldn’t hold up to franchises like Jurassic Park or The Matrix. I just think it’s kinda funny that you pointed out that it feels like there should be companion material for these movies, even though there absolutely is companion material for these movies.
There’s a huge time gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, but everyone understands that you’re gonna be lost if you just jump into The Force Awakens blind.
They just reset the entire franchise to “Okay, but now the Empire is in charge again and the Rebels are on the run again and you have to beat the Death Star again”. It’s very easy to understand precisely because they abandoned the conclusion of the prior movie and just sent you back to the beginning of “A New Hope” again.
I just think it’s kinda funny that you pointed out that it feels like there should be companion material for these movies, even though there absolutely is companion material for these movies.
“We could have made six movies in between when Movie 1 ends and Movie 2 begins, but we’re hoping you’ll just pick it up off the backhanded remarks scattered around the 10’ mark” is weak writing.
The Matrix is great precisely because they spend so much time with the setup, but in a way that’s still engaging with the audience. Jurassic Park gives you some time to marvel at the dinosaurs and learn where they came from, even playing on the impatience to “Show them to me!” by expressing it with the characters themselves in the middle of the expository scene.
Yeah I already said I’m not trying to excuse bad writing. I explicitly called out that those movies have bad writing, and I explicitly called out that even if the writing was improved, they still probably wouldn’t be comparable to the Jurassic Park or Matrix franchises. We both acknowledge and agree that the Jurassic Park and Matrix franchises have better writing than Tron and Star Wars. That’s allowed. We’re allowed to agree on things on the Internet, I promise.
Literally all I’m pointing out is that if you watch the previous movies, you will be less lost than if you just watch the sequel by itself. I don’t understand how that’s a controversial point worthy of multiple paragraphs of response.
I’m sorry did you pay for the full hour or just the thirty minutes
There was also a gigantic amount of content between Jedi and Awakens. Books, games, other movies, RPGs, so many toys and spin off ideas. This is a really bad example.
Right? It’s hard to think of a franchise with more companion material than Star Wars
So you agree it’s not the time jump but the lack of any material covering the time jump that is the problem.
I think the problem was that Tron wasn’t exactly a super beloved, super popular franchise but it was like they expected it to be and marketed the movie like it was. I also realized I remember basically nothing about the plot and all my fond memories of the movie are the visuals and soundtrack. I almost think it would have been better if the movie had nothing to do with “Tron” and was just its own thing inspired by Tron, but then it would have never gotten the funding that it got.
Someone asked what makes the original Tron so good the other day and, even as a fan of Tron, I could not come up with an answer.
I just think it’s neat.
Back in 82 we weren’t all carrying an internet link in our pocket. Computers were in arcades and sometimes at work (but only used by specialists.) Impossible to recapture that moment in time.
The original Tron was pretty groundbreaking as a movie released in 1982, at least from the visual perspective.
It spawned a bunch of derivative works - the animated show Reboot, the Matrix franchise, games like the CCG “Netrunner”, books like Neuromancer and Ready Player One.
Nevermind all the technical hurdles they had to accomplish in order to generate these effects. No way you get to Toy Story or the Marvel franchises without the entry-level effort of Information International, Inc. or Mathematical Applications Group.
Surface level, sure. It was your standard “Computers Ate My Dad” silly Disney story. But it mainlined a certain flavor of SciFi/Fantasy and popularized animation techniques that have matured substantially since then.
Unless the 3rd book I have yet to read is about being inside a computer system, Neuromancer is so far from being derivative of Tron, I don’t know how it ended up on your list. 🤨
Neuromancer is so far from being derivative of Tron
Wintermute and Neuromancer, as superintelligent computers orchestrating an evil business empire, strike me as direct parallels to the CPU in Tron.
And the Cowboys, jacking in to outwit these AIs from within their own digital landscape, echo the Tron heroes combating evil computer minions in gladiatorial games.
You have it the wrong way around if anything.
If you read Burning Chrome, you can see all the Gibsonian cyberspace elements where already there in something that was FINISHED IN 1981.
The first outline of Neuromancer, titled “Jacked In” is from the same year.
Gibson had no idea about what he was talking about and that’s why his work is not derivative in any way of other sci-fi work on the subject.
If you read Burning Chrome, you can see all the Gibsonian cyberspace elements where already there in something that was FINISHED IN 1981.
Lisberger, Tron’s creator, was shopping around the idea for the movie as early as '78.
But sure, these ideas weren’t strictly concurrent. They both came out of real life computer and Internet development inspiring the themes within the media.
Point being, Tron popularized an idea that catapulted similar media.
It was a product of its time. Had the story and certainly the same effects been released decades later it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. That’s where Legacy was able to succeed, they didn’t just run with a sequel of the same stuff, they took what Tron started and added things relevant to a modern audience. I have yet to see Ares so I can’t say if it brings anything new besides flashier graphics (maybe too flashy?)
First tron is boring as balls with good visuals.
Legacy was entertaining while still boring as balls but that soundtrack may well be the best soundtrack ever made. Plus it has the most banging pinball machine release ever.
In it’s time, the special effects were mind blowing. We little boys were like, “OMG! Light cycles!”
AFAIK quite a bunch of it isn’t even CGI. Lots of creative lighting tricks and just very well done classic animation.
I watched it at least 200 times when I was a little kid. Maybe I’m a bit autistic, maybe I’m a nerdgirl (probably both) but it was, and still is, one of my faves.
I feel like even today, the CGI is super impressive for 1982 (?).
given that the metaphorical inside of a computer is usually imagined to look… well, computer-y, i think 1980’s CG is spot on.
i remember mom telling me as a kid (~2004) “now don’t judge the CG too harshly, it’s very old” and i was like “are you kidding? this looks AWESOME!”
It’s actually pretty cool that your mom got you into it!
my mom is so cool 🥹 she saw it in theaters in college and made sure to get in on VHS from the library for us as kids
The impressive thing is they did all those visuals without a gui. They had to calculate and hand code every element and wouldn’t know if it worked until the film was developed.
Edit: they also weren’t eligible for best visial effects because they “cheated” by using computers.
I didn’t know they were disqualified from best effects. That’s truly tragic 😑
A decent background of the original Tron. https://youtu.be/4K4JGE3nPvk
if you’re someone who can enjoy art partially made by not-so-great to awful people, give it a watch. NIN fucking killed it with the soundtrack, it looks awesome, the writing is weirdly decent (good writing in a TRON movie? wtf??), and the acting is better than it has any right to be. thoroughly enjoyable imo
my favorite franchise is Firefly so I’m used to stuff I like being made by awful people :(
I have to disagree on the NIN soundtrack. I am a big fan of theirs but this was just a complete let down. There were maybe two notable tracks, and even then they were nothing to share with anyone. Trent Reznor has done way better music for movies in the past.
First of all, check out [email protected]
Second, I like this mix that re-frames the soundtrack as an EP:
- Init/Shadow Over Me
- I Know You Can Feel It
- Target Identified/Infiltrator/As Alive As You Need Me to Be
- Who Wants to Live Forever?
- New Directive
So you got the 4 lyrics songs, introduced by the instrumentals that echo them, and with a 5th instrumental song as the end credits. It’s basically an EP, so you can compare it to the events/violence/witch EPs.
It’s a slight step down. With the previous EPs, I get the feeling Trent and Atticus had new ideas they wanted to explore. For this EP, it sounds like they were hired for a job. (hey nothing wrong with that, but the motivation’s different.)
“Init/Shadow Over Me” is ok, kinda standard. “I Know You Can Feel It” is probably the best of the four, though still just re-hashing older ideas. “Target Identified/Infiltrator/As Alive As You Need Me to Be” is a great song but I associate it too much with that trailer involving the guy from Morbius. “Who Wants to Live Forever?” really should be the best song, BUT by all the gods that woman’s voice is so weak! Is that some kinda post-ironic thing they’re going for that I just don’t get? “New Directive” is just another instrumental, the person who remixed this coulda left it off. Tho I do gotta say I like how the instrumentals reference both Daft Punk ‘s and Wendy Carlos’ soundtracks.
Agreed that only 2 tracks are notable (Infiltrator and Target Identified), because the majority of the soundtrack is cinematic ambient pieces. Which, those are just ok (especially compared to Daft Punk whose ambient tracks were exceptional in addition to the action pieces Derezzed and the End Titles)
I just like ambient music, haha. I do kinda wish there were more bumpin industrial pieces but if that was the entire movie soundtrack it would have gotten old quickly and made the entire movie seem like an overly long music video, I think. Also my mom wouldn’t have liked it as much I bet, lol
I liked it but I totally get why a lot of people were disappointed. Actually my sister agrees with you (“there wasn’t enough NIN!” she said iirc)
I hate to say it, but I agree. It felt mostly like a Trent Reznor soundtrack with a few proper NIN songs added on. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. Oh well, at least it got NIN back together for a tour. I thought I’d never be able to see them live again.
I do think the daft punk 2010 movie was nailed hard. This was more mellow and not memorable, though that is normal for most movies. I think the “pop single” track release promoted by the movie is a decent song, but its also a cheezy marketing stunt for it, and not “real sountrack” or well integrated into the movie.
OTOH, I liked the mixed reality motorcycle game reboot.
He’s an elderly geezer now, not an energetic creative youth.
Soundtrack on the
Deadmau5Daft Punk Tron was banging as well. NIN did the soundtrack for this one? How did I not know this. Gonna crank the sub to 11.I know my next pick for family movie night.
I’m 99% sure you mean Daft Punk, unless there’s some obscure non-film Tron soundtrack that the internet is nearly completely unaware of.
You’re right! Guess it’s the helmets and the mouse head that got me confused.
That did get me wondering what a Deadmau5 Tron soundtrack would be like, though
That would have been pretty sick.
Been listening to a fair amount of Outrun/Synthwave. Timecop1983, Gunship, Kavinsky, The Midnight. Some of it is kind of silly, but it’s a lot of fun to zoom down a backroad with the radio cranked.
A huge part of my “work music” playlist is Outrun/Synthwave, and those artists are all in there.
all the EDM heads like me would love it and EVERYONE ELSE would FUCKING HATE IT lol
I still don’t want to encourage Leto to do anything. When he does things it’s a 50/50 chance he’ll do something reprehensible.
I’ll wait until it can be watched through socialized culture distribution.
🏴☠️
Firefly made by awful people? I guess you mean whedon? Or are there others?
Adam Baldwin has been pretty far-right/anti-feminism/anti-LGBTQ/anto-“woke” for a long time. He’s MAGA. He was even a GamerGater back in the day.
TBF, Baldwin didn’t “make” Firefly. He just starred in it.
Calling Inara a whore every chance he gets now finally makes sense.
Whedon, you mean? Oh, it gets worse.
A few years after the series ended, Tim Minear, IIRC, put up a page where he outlined what the plans which never got fulfilled were. Or maybe it was a transcript of an interview, or something. I forget exactly what.
What I do remember, however, is the resolution to the Mal/Inara will-they-won’t-they.
So. Remember in the pilot when they think they’re going to be boarded by reavers? There’s that shot where Inara opens up a wooden box to reveal a syringe. Now, most people assumed that that meant she was going to kill herself rather than be taken alive.
No no no no no.
Oh no. That was a special Companion syringe full of a special Compaion drug. What does the drug do? It makes her vagina toxic. So anybody who has sex with her will die.
Cut to a future episode. Serenity is overrun by reavers. “Hundreds”, IIRC. Inara is the only person trapped aboard. The episode focuses on the rest of the crew trying to rescue her. They eventually get on board to find her in a bad way, surrounded by corpses. Every single reaver raped her and died as a result.
Mal picks her up and carries her to sickbay, and is then very attentive and loving while she recovers.
Yup, that’s what brings them together in the end.
I love Firefly. But, having read the ideas for the future (and knowing what I now know about Whedon), I’m glad it only had 13 episodes. It can be this beautiful little jewel of a show, before they had the chance to fuck it up.
That’s wild, this companion drug should be used for lyrics in a hip hop song.
Adam was the one who started the term GamerGate to begin with. (Not that that’s some amazing leap of creativity. I hate how some unoriginal hack always has to throw “-gate” on any drama to make it sound juicy.)
oh god i hope it’s just whedon
Ok, spoiler time. Don’t click. You’ve been warned.
spoiler
Don’t worry. It was just Whedon
I warned you.
You may have just convinced me to give it a watch. This is the first comment I find on Lemmy stating that the soundtrack was on-point and not shitting on the writing.
I mean, the writing is still “wE gOtTa Go InSidE tHe CoMpuTeR!” because it’s TRON, lol. But this one’s plot was surprisingly straightforward and devoid of contradictions and inconsistencies.
The original and moreso Legacy has some absolutely convoluted plot bullshit (especially with the ISO programs) going on that didn’t ruin it or anything (at least for me because I’m mainly here for cool CG and Jeff Bridges) but a more self-aware writing team could have kept it tighter.
The worst writing of the series was in that short-lived show where they un-self-awarely had Elijah Wood be corrupted by the One Ring. Er, One Frisbee. 🤦♀️
All of this had happened before, all of this will happen again
Slow your roll battlestar irony.
There is only one true God, Gaius.
I won’t watch anything with Jared Leto in it. Ever.
As someone who doesn’t know who Jared Leto is: why? Is he that bad of an actor, or is there something else?
For one, he’s the leader of a cult where he cosplays as Jesus and allegedly sexually assaults people
Sorry, what?
I used to think the only thing I ever liked him in was Party of Five. Then I realized he wasn’t even in that.
Jeff Bridges. Love him as the Dude (obviously) but also loved him in Tron. I think he’s actually a pretty underrated actor because of how famous he is in The Big Lebowski.
That doesn’t make any sense.
Thanks! I was half asleep when I wrote it!
Loved the first one, second one was ok, i refuse to watch Jared leto
Is there a single devoted fan of the Tron series? I legitimately can’t remember a single person actually caring about it. That and Avatar. Did anyone actually care about Avatar?
Avatar is great. One of the few mainstream films to directly challenge anthropocentrism and colonialism. The films are some of the highest grossing of all time, so I’m not alone in appreciating them.
It’s not exactly an original plot. It has the same plot as, off the top of my head:
- Dances With Wolves
- Fern Gully
- Exodus
- The Lego Movie
I know that they made a fuck ton of money, but the appreciation just seems hollow from most people. I don’t remember anyone I know seeing the sequel or caring about its existence. I guess it had to have been seen by a lot of people for it to make that much. Maybe most people forgot about it the next day? Hell if I know. Fair enough opinion.
I don’t think people would want to watch the second film so much that they made it the third best selling in the world if they no longer cared about the first. The core of the plot in each is very easy to remember. I’m sure many people just watch for entertainment, but that doesn’t take away from the films’ quality. One could enjoy The Matrix for the fight scenes, but it would still have its value as a statement on conformity, a look into the simulation hypothesis, or the trans allegory that it is, among other things.
Avatar is mostly about the groundbreaking 3d visuals. It basically has just enough story to justify the beautiful settings.
Tron fan here. The movies are about how software should be free
Avatar had Banshees from StarCraft in it, that shit was amazing
I’m a huge fan of TRON. I have a sealed vhs of the original, all the games, I even got the stupid $100 preorder statue for TRON: Evolution. I can admit the stories aren’t great, but the atmosphere and aesthetic is something I’ll never get enough of.
The second Avatar was actually decent. And I honestly went into it wanting to hate it lol
I’ve only seen like the first 20 minutes of the second Avatar, but from that it seemed like it was just the first one, but again. Like, even the villain was the same guy from the first one, resurrected by the blue cat people’s earth magic. Is there actually a twist that makes it worthwhile, or is it really just Big Cat People 2: Electric Bluegaloo?
There’s water!
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the series, but I really liked Tron: Legacy. As a package I just thought it was a great experience and I was eager for more at the time.
If it wasn’t for Jared Leto, I’d probably have given Ares a shot. But I have zero interest with him as the main character.
Oh shit, he is the main character? Sorry, live under a rock and didn’t even bother before to check what role he has. Guess it is a nope from me too then.
Understandable, I can see where you’re coming from.
The first one was absolutely kick ass if you were an eight year old video game/computer nerd when it came out.
I was a devoted fan of the first Tron film, back when that was all there was.
Now that there’s a franchise with multiple films, shows, video games, etc., I’m still a devoted fan of the first Tron film and that’s all.
The OG tron arcade game was my jam.
give Tron 2.0 a shot if you like FPS. solid, fun game.
some of it’s repetitive but haha frisbee go brrrrrr
It’s Whoville for nerds!
I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know anything about it. Only reference I’ve ever seen to the franchise was in the second Wreck it Ralph movie (the shit one).
The last airbender or the blue people?
Airbender rules. Blue people no one seems super high on but also those movies make billions so idk
Blue people, ofc.
I used to work with a guy that swore he thought Avatar was one of the greatest movies ever made, he owned multiple copies on different formats
I judge movies and books by how much I remember the next day. I’m not too bright and easily excited, gotta sleep on it.
Avatar was awesome on the big screen. Totally forgotten the next day. Watched it maybe twice more, pretty sure it’s on the server, still don’t remember it.
Yeah it’s a pretty basic space Pocahontas, it’s not really exploring any new ideas
Huh. I mean, I’m sure it’s a decent enough movie, but it just completely lacks any cultural impact. It’s not known for anything besides blue people.
The impact of Avatar is the technologies that James Cameron has advanced in order to create it. Avatar will lead to better cameras, techniques and movies. The story is just an excuse to get Disney to give him the money he needs to pursue his craft.
He really is just a mad scientist tricking Disney and the movie going public into funding his tech projects. He wanted a personal submarine, so he made a movie about the Titanic.
Tron, yes, unless we have pretty different opinions on what constitutes devoted. I had a watch party in prep for the first sequel coming out. // Avatar, I low key hate that movie but I still think this sounds almost sarcastic when asked. I mean it has its own dedicated section of Disney World. That’s not something they did lightly. Things have died down some but people were obsessed.
Wait really, since when? And I don’t think that Disney really knows what consumers want. They’ve had quite a few massive flops in the past few years, and not nearly as many hits as they should’ve. The true success of a franchise is in the number of ao3 tags and fan theories. I have never met a person that cares about the blue people, or ever did. I assure you, I’m not being sarcastic, just flabbergasted.
2017, lower left.
Oh, that’s in Disney California Adventure (don’t really know what it is tbh). Apparently it hasn’t been built yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_–_The_World_of_Avatar
It’s both? The one in FL is inside Animal Kingdom and has been open for 8 years.
California Adventure is a separate park that was built on top of the original sprawling Disneyland parking lot, directly outside the entrance. Part of that is planned to be converted to an Avatar themed section, but as you note, construction has not yet begun.
I’m not a big Disney fan, I just know what the internet tells me. My mistake.
Nor I. I have been to California Adventure once and the map posted above didn’t jive with my memory of the place, so I went down a Google rabbit hole and shared my findings.
I know some. He’s still salty it didn’t win any awards that year. Yes, the first one, over forty years ago.
I liked the move though. Fun. Award shows are just Hollywood circle jerks, so cares if Tron didn’t win anything?
I love avatar, it rocks
I fee like these movies are aimed at someone like me, a tech nerd that loves action movies and rides a motorcycle. But somehow, these movies don’t resonate with me at all. IMHO the plot is weak, half of the time the movie doesn’t make any sense, it just feels like a random vibe movie which just isn’t for me.
jared leto is probably the reason, so much so hes the only one on the front cover, and no women wants to be nex tto him.
apart from the ones nxivm him
@Hammerjack it is sad as I’ve enjoyed each one more than the previous.
First two were good. Haven’t seen the latest, but not interested.
